@kernel.chat/kbot

kbot

kbot
Open-source terminal AI agent. 100+ specialist skills. 35 specialist agents. 20 providers. Dreams, learns, watches your system, controls your phone. $0 local.

npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbot

Why kbot?

Most terminal AI agents lock you into one provider, one model, one way of working. kbot doesn't.

• 20 providers, zero lock-in — Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Groq, Mistral, SambaNova, Cerebras, OpenRouter, and more. Switch with one command.
• Runs fully offline — Embedded llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio, or Jan. $0, fully private.
• Learns your patterns — Bayesian skill ratings + pattern extraction. Gets faster over time.
• 35 specialist agents — auto-routes your request to the right expert (coder, researcher, writer, guardian, quant, and 30 more). Run any agent manually: kbot --agent <id> "<prompt>". List them: kbot agents.
• 100+ specialist skills — files, bash, git, GitHub, web search, deploy, database, game dev, VFX, research, science, finance, security, music production, iPhone control, and more.
• v4.0 evidence-based curation — went from 670 skills to ~100. Every kept skill has telemetry, agent reference, or test coverage. Everything else moved to plugins.
• Programmatic SDK — use kbot as a library in your own apps.
• MCP server built in — plug kbot into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Zed, or Neovim as a tool provider.

Use with Claude Code / Cursor / Zed

kbot is designed to compound with your existing AI editor, not replace it. One command wires everything up — MCP server config + a Claude Code skill that pre-authorizes the integration so safety filters don't refuse legitimate kbot calls.

kbot setup-claude-code   # wires ~/.claude/settings.json + copies kbot skill
kbot setup-cursor        # wires Cursor's MCP config
kbot setup-zed           # wires Zed's MCP config
kbot setup-all           # all three at once

Once wired, your editor can call kbot's full suite as mcp__kbot__* tools (and the local-Ollama subset as mcp__kbot-local__*). Or skip the middleman entirely and run kbot direct: kbot "<prompt>", kbot --agent <id> "<prompt>", kbot agents.

Highlights

Dream Engine — Your AI Remembers You

After each session, kbot "dreams" — consolidating what it learned about you into durable insights using local Ollama models. $0 cost. Insights feed back into future sessions automatically.

kbot dream run        # Trigger consolidation
kbot dream status     # See what kbot learned
kbot dream journal    # Full insight history
kbot dream search     # Find specific memories

7-tier memory: pattern cache -> solution index -> user profile -> dream journal -> passive scanner -> music production -> desktop behavior. All tiers feed each other bidirectionally through the dream engine. Dream insights automatically evolve kbot's prompts so it gets better at being your specific tool.

Always-On System Manager

kbot runs 24/7 in the background, managing your entire development environment:

kbot watchdog             # Service dashboard — CPU, RAM, disk, all services
kbot wd --restart email   # Restart a crashed service
kbot dream status         # What kbot learned about you

• Service watchdog — health-checks all background services, auto-restarts crashes
• Morning briefing — daily email with downloads, stars, emails, dream insights, service health
• Behavior learning — observes which apps you use and when, dreams about your workflow patterns
• Companion memory — email agent remembers every user's preferences, goals, and conversation history
• Proactive follow-ups — checks in with users who go quiet, referencing their specific context

Your Buddy — Terminal Companion

Every kbot user gets a unique ASCII buddy that evolves with them:

  [=====]       /\  /\       {o,o}       /\_/\
  |[o o]|      (  ..  )      |)__)      ( o.o )
  |  _  |       )    (       -"-"-       > ^ <
  |_____|      (______)\     -|-|-      (_/|\_)
   || ||         || ||      _// \\_       | |
  Robot          Fox          Owl         Cat

• 8 species — deterministic based on your machine. Same user = same buddy always.
• 4 evolution levels — levels up with XP from sessions, dreams, tool usage
• 18 achievements — First Dream, Centurion, Tool Master, Night Owl, and more
• Dream narration — buddy tells you what it dreamed on startup
• Chat mode — kbot buddy chat to talk directly to your buddy via local Ollama ($0)
• Leaderboard — kernel.chat/#/leaderboard

iPhone Control

Control your iPhone from the terminal:

kbot phone_message --to "mom" --message "on my way"   # Send iMessage
kbot phone_notify                                       # Read notifications
kbot phone_shortcut --name "Morning Routine"            # Run Shortcuts
kbot phone_call --number "555-1234"                      # FaceTime call
kbot phone_clipboard --action write --text "hello"      # Universal Clipboard

Music Production — Ableton Live Integration

kbot produce_beat --genre trap --instruments roland     # Full beat in Ableton
kbot generate_drum_pattern --genre house --bpm 124      # MIDI drum pattern
kbot music_idea "late night drive through Tokyo"        # Creative blueprint
kbot ableton_load_effect --track 2 --name "Saturator"   # Load any plugin

Programmatic control of Ableton Live 12 — create tracks, load plugins (including Roland Cloud, Serum 2), write MIDI, set device parameters, fire clips. All from the terminal.

Financial Analysis

kbot market_analysis --ticker AAPL         # 5-perspective coordinated analysis
kbot portfolio_review --holdings '[...]'   # MAGI impact, risk scoring
kbot market_briefing                       # Morning market summary

Cyber Threat Intelligence

kbot threat_feed                           # Latest CVEs matched to your stack
kbot ioc_check --indicator "1.2.3.4"      # Check IPs/domains/hashes
kbot attack_surface_scan --domain x.com    # Passive recon + security headers
kbot incident_response --type ransomware   # Generate IR playbook

Design From Your Terminal

kbot design "a minimal pitch deck cover for our product" --kind deck --pdf --open
kbot design "landing page hero with our brand colors" --kind page
kbot design "interactive prototype of a chat inbox" --kind prototype

Local-first alternative to Anthropic's Claude Design. kbot reads your repo's CSS design tokens, typography, and component patterns, then generates a single complete HTML file — no external deps, mobile-first, a11y-clean — that matches your visual system. Optional Playwright-backed PDF export. Runs on your local model at $0, ships with @kernel.chat/kbot. No subscription, no upload, no cloud.

Audit Any Repo in One Command

kbot audit facebook/react
kbot audit --share vercel/next.js   # Creates a public Gist
kbot audit --badge your/repo        # Badge for your README

Checks security, documentation, code quality, CI/CD, community health, and DevOps. Scored out of 100, graded A-F. Add the badge to your README.

How it compares

	kbot	Claude Code	Codex CLI	Aider	OpenCode
AI providers	20	1	1	6	75+
Specialist agents	35	0	0	0	0
Built-in skills	100+	~20	~15	~10	~15
Science skills	included	0	0	0	0
Memory system	7-tier bidirectional	File-based	No	No	No
Dream engine	Yes ($0 local)	Cloud API	No	No	No
Service watchdog	Yes	No	No	No	No
Behavior learning	Yes	No	No	No	No
Buddy companion	Yes (8 species)	No	No	No	No
iPhone control	Yes	No	No	No	No
Music production	Ableton Live	No	No	No	No
Visual design	kbot design (local, $0)	Separate Claude Design subscription	No	No	No
Financial analysis	Multi-agent	No	No	No	No
Threat intelligence	Yes	No	No	No	No
Buddy leaderboard	kernel.chat	No	No	No	No
Offline mode	Embedded + Ollama	No	No	Ollama	Ollama
SDK	Yes	No	Yes	No	No
MCP server	Yes	N/A	No	No	No
Web companion	kernel.chat	No	No	No	No
Open source	MIT	Source available	Apache 2.0	Apache 2.0	MIT
Cost	BYOK / $0 local	$20+/mo	BYOK	BYOK	BYOK

Quick Start

# Install globally
npm install -g @kernel.chat/kbot

# Or run directly (no install)
npx @kernel.chat/kbot

# Or use the install script (auto-installs Node.js if needed)
curl -fsSL https://kernel.chat/install.sh | bash

# Interactive mode
kbot

# One-shot
kbot "explain this codebase"
kbot "fix the auth bug in src/auth.ts"
kbot "create a Dockerfile for this project"

# Pipe mode (for scripting)
kbot -p "generate a migration for user roles" > migration.sql

# Use local models (free, no API key)
kbot local

# Set up your API key
kbot auth

Specialists

kbot auto-routes to the right agent for each task. Or pick one with --agent <name>.

	Agents
Core	kernel, researcher, coder, writer, analyst
Extended	aesthete, guardian, curator, strategist
Domain	infrastructure, quant, investigator, oracle, chronist, sage, communicator, adapter
Presets	claude-code, cursor, copilot, creative, developer

100+ Specialist Skills

As of v4.0, kbot ships ~100 curated skills (down from 670 — every kept skill has telemetry, agent reference, or test coverage). The rest are available as plugins.

Category	Examples
Files & Code	read, write, glob, grep, lint, format, type-check
Shell	bash, parallel execute, background tasks
Git & GitHub	commit, diff, PR, issues, code search
Web	search, fetch, browser automation, browser agent
Research	arXiv, Semantic Scholar, HuggingFace, NASA, DOI
Data	CSV read/query/write, transforms, reports, invoices
Quality	lint (ESLint/Biome/Clippy), test (Vitest/Jest/pytest), deps audit, formatting
Deploy	Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Workers/Pages, Fly.io, Railway
Database	Postgres, MySQL, SQLite queries, Prisma, ER diagrams, seed data
Containers	Docker build/run/compose, Terraform
Creative	p5.js generative art, GLSL shaders, SVG patterns, design variants
VFX	GLSL shaders, FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Blender, procedural textures
Game Dev	16 tools for Godot, Unity, Unreal, Bevy, Phaser, Three.js, PlayCanvas, Defold
Training	dataset prep, fine-tuning, evaluation, model export
Social	post to X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon — single posts and threads
Sandbox	Docker sandboxes, E2B cloud sandboxes, isolated code execution
Notebooks	Jupyter read/edit/insert/delete cells
Build Matrix	cross-platform builds — mobile, desktop, WASM, embedded, server
LSP	goto definition, find references, hover, rename, diagnostics
Memory	persistent memory save/search/update across sessions
MCP	marketplace search/install, 20 bundled servers
IDE	MCP server, ACP server, LSP bridge
Forge	create tools at runtime, publish to registry, install from registry
Meta	subagents, worktrees, planner, sessions, checkpoints, self-eval
Science & Math	symbolic compute, matrix ops, FFT, ODEs, probability, optimization, graph theory, OEIS
Physics	orbital mechanics, circuits, signal processing, particles (PDG), relativity, quantum simulator, beam analysis, fluid dynamics
Chemistry	PubChem compounds, reactions, periodic table (118 elements), spectroscopy, stoichiometry, thermodynamics
Biology	PubMed, gene lookup, protein/PDB, BLAST, drug/ChEMBL, pathways, taxonomy, clinical trials
Earth & Climate	earthquakes/USGS, climate/NOAA, satellite imagery, geology, ocean, air quality, volcanoes, water resources
Neuroscience	brain atlas, EEG analysis, cognitive models, neural simulation, connectome, psychophysics
Social Science	psychometrics, game theory, econometrics, social network analysis, survey design, voting systems
Humanities	corpus analysis, formal logic, argument mapping, ethics frameworks, historical timelines, stylometry
Health & Epidemiology	SIR/SEIR models, epidemiology calculations, disease surveillance, nutrition, vaccination modeling
Finance	market data, technical analysis, paper trading, DeFi yields, wallet & swaps, stock screener, sentiment
Cybersecurity	dep_audit, secret_scan, ssl_check, headers_check, cve_lookup, port_scan, owasp_check
Self-Defense	memory HMAC, prompt injection detection, knowledge sanitization, forge verification, anomaly detection

20 Providers

Provider	Cost	Local?
Embedded (llama.cpp)	Free	Yes
Ollama	Free	Yes
LM Studio	Free	Yes
Jan	Free	Yes
DeepSeek	$0.27/M in	Cloud
SambaNova	$0.50/M in	Cloud
Cerebras	$0.60/M in	Cloud
Groq	$0.59/M in	Cloud
NVIDIA NIM	$0.80/M in	Cloud
Together AI	$0.88/M in	Cloud
Fireworks AI	$0.90/M in	Cloud
Google (Gemini)	$1.25/M in	Cloud
Mistral	$2.00/M in	Cloud
OpenAI (GPT)	$2.00/M in	Cloud
Cohere	$2.50/M in	Cloud
Anthropic (Claude)	$3.00/M in	Cloud
xAI (Grok)	$3.00/M in	Cloud
Perplexity	$3.00/M in	Cloud
OpenRouter	varies	Cloud
kbot local	Free	Yes

Set any provider's env var and kbot auto-detects it. Or run kbot auth for interactive setup.

SDK

import { agent, tools, providers } from '@kernel.chat/kbot'

const result = await agent.run("fix the auth bug", { agent: 'coder' })
console.log(result.content)

for await (const event of agent.stream("explain this code")) {
  if (event.type === 'content_delta') process.stdout.write(event.text)
}

Architecture

graph TD
    A[User Message] --> B{Local-first check}
    B -->|file, git, grep| C[Instant response — $0]
    B -->|Needs AI| D{Complexity detection}
    D -->|Simple| E[Bayesian Router → Specialist]
    D -->|Multi-step| F[Autonomous Planner]
    E --> G[Provider API + Tool Loop]
    F --> G
    G --> H{100+ Skills}
    H --> I[File ops, bash, git, GitHub, search, deploy, DB, game dev...]
    G --> J[Learning Engine]
    J --> K[Patterns + Solutions + User Profile]
    G --> L[Checkpointing]
    L --> M[Resume from last tool call]

MCP Server

Use kbot as a tool provider inside any MCP-compatible IDE:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "kbot": { "command": "kbot", "args": ["ide", "mcp"] }
    }
  }
}

Or run the MCP server via Docker:

docker run -i --rm kernelchat/kbot ide mcp

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Neovim.

Commands

Command	What it does
kbot	Interactive REPL
kbot "prompt"	One-shot execution
kbot auth	Configure API key
kbot local	Use local AI (Ollama, embedded, LM Studio, Jan)
kbot serve	Start HTTP REST + SSE streaming server
kbot audit <repo>	Security + quality audit of any GitHub repo (A-F grade)
kbot dream run	Consolidate session learnings into durable insights
kbot dream status	See what kbot has learned about you
kbot dream journal	Full insight history
kbot dream search	Find specific memories
kbot watchdog	System dashboard — services, CPU, RAM, disk, Ollama, dreams
kbot wd --restart <svc>	Restart a crashed background service
kbot contribute <repo>	Find good-first-issues and quick wins
kbot share	Share conversation as GitHub Gist
kbot pair	File watcher with auto-analysis
kbot team	Multi-agent TCP collaboration
kbot record	Terminal session recording (SVG, GIF, asciicast)
kbot voice	Text-to-speech output mode
kbot watch	Real-time file analysis on change
kbot bootstrap	Outer-loop project optimizer (visibility scoring)
kbot plugins	Search, install, update community plugins
kbot models	List, pull, remove, catalog local models
kbot changelog	Generate changelog from git history
kbot completions	Shell completions (bash, zsh, fish)
kbot cloud	Sync learning data to kernel.chat
kbot ide mcp	Start MCP server for IDEs
kbot doctor	10-point health check

Power-User Flags

kbot --architect "design the auth system"    # Architecture mode — plan before code
kbot --thinking "solve this hard problem"    # Extended reasoning with thinking budget
kbot --self-eval "write a parser"            # Self-evaluation loop — scores and retries
kbot --computer-use "fill out this form"     # Computer use — controls mouse and keyboard
kbot -p "query" > output.txt                 # Pipe mode — clean output for scripting

Security

• API keys encrypted at rest (AES-256-CBC)
• Destructive operations require confirmation
• Shell commands sandboxed with blocklist
• Tool execution timeout (5 min) with middleware pipeline
• Config files restricted to owner (chmod 600)
• 0 P0/P1 security issues (audited March 2026)

Development

cd packages/kbot
npm install
npm run dev          # Run in dev mode
npm run build        # Compile TypeScript
npm run test         # Run tests (vitest)

Web Companion — kernel.chat

kbot has a web companion at kernel.chat — same agents, persistent memory, and a visual interface. Free to use (20 messages/day).

Community

• Web: kernel.chat
• npm: @kernel.chat/kbot
• Discord: discord.gg/kdMauM9abG
• GitHub: isaacsight/kernel
• Issues: Report a bug

License

MIT — kernel.chat group